Comment & Discussion

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of lesser disasters—was to shade the facts or slant the truth. High-ranking spin doc­tors (the lowest specie of the sea-lawyer genus) have made or sanctioned false or misleading statements—thereby compro­mising the personal integrity of every man and woman who has ever worn the Navy uniform.

Naval officers have always been held strictly accountable for their performance. Accountability is always hard, usually personally painful and—judged by rela­tively lax civilian standards—sometimes unfair. In spite of this, rigid personal accountability is something that makes the naval profession exceptional; officers have a bedrock pride in the knowledge that they and their peers are held to a higher standard.

I hope that the nadir of the Navy’s in­stitutional accountability was the miser­able handling of the Iowa explosion. In violation of the most basic obligation of naval leadership, a dead gunner’s mate was abandoned by his superior officers from his division officer, to his captain, all the way up to his Chief of Naval Op­erations. It was in a complete and dismal failure of will, responsibility, and in­tegrity. That sorry performance was noth­ing more than a cynical attempt to pre­serve the Navy’s carefully burnished public-relations image, to keep getting from the Congress the funding that nour­ishes organizational empires. Sadly, pub­lic relations has become an obsession with the Navy. A telling example of this sort of thinking is how Proceedings—our magazine—dedicated almost an entire issue to a whining examination of why the Navy failed to garner as much fa­vorable publicity from the Persian Gulf War as the Air Force. This discussion would have been far more appropriate in People.

Some recommendations for the solidly honest and honorable Chief of Naval Op­erations—and President of the Naval In­stitute—Admiral Frank B. Kelso;

>• The Navy must held to the same stan­dards of accountability and integrity as an institution that it expects from every officer.

>■ The most important criterion for pub­lic statements should be truth. Instead of moaning about hostile reporters, the Navy should realize that its credibility is based on always telling the truth. Get rid of the career “official spokesmen” or restrict them to managing the Fleet Home Town News Service. All line officers are perfectly capable of telling the truth and refusing to release classified information. ► More admirals should be fired and more should resign on issues of princi­ple. The Navy has plenty of admirals— soon there may be more of them than there are commissioned ships. With all respect to admirals’ dedication, experi­ence, expertise, and talent, the Navy prob­ably has more trouble coming up with enough mess cooks than it does finding officers to promote to admiral. Plenty of the captains who not selected for flag rank would make excellent admirals. In short, admirals are a valuable but won­derfully expendable naval commodity.

If handled reasonably, firing a few ad­mirals whenever there is a palpable naval screwup would not hurt the Navy very much and actually might help. It wouldn’t be as disruptive as some people might claim. After all, unlike Stalin, we would not shoot these people. They’d just be sent home a little early—with a nice pen­sion and an honored title. □

“Press Release from Hell”

(See P. Pritulsky, pp. 51-55, July 1992

Proceedings)

Commander Robert M. Chamberlain, U.S. Naval Reserve—Commander Pritul­sky was right on the mark about the state of airborne early warning (AEW) in the Navy. He also was entirely correct in sug­gesting that, unless something is done now to sustain an organic AEW capa­bility for carrier air wings, AEW will be­come exclusively an Air Force mission.

The painful lessons learned—and losses suffered—by the Royal Navy in 1982, when it went to the Falklands with­out a seagoing AEW capability and be­yond the range of land-based AEW sup­port, should not be lost upon us. A glance at a globe should prove to anyone with any understanding of aircraft operations that continuous, long-range, land-based, AEW support all over the world is, quite frankly, impossible. A carrier-based AEW aircraft is the only surveillance platform that can support a battle group in distant locations whenever rapid reaction and sustained AEW and surveillance cover­age are required.

Navy acceptance of Air Force AEW support for its carrier battle groups cer­tainly would produce strong suggestions that the aircraft carrier is no longer re­quired. Advocates of the B-2 bomber are already saying that it can conduct sus­tained, long-range conventional strikes virtually anywhere in the world. If the Air Force developed a team of B-2s, Air­borne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, and aerial tankers for long-range strike missions, how could the Navy make the case for keeping aircraft carriers?

Therefore, to maintain the carrier bat­tle group’s viability as a vital U.S. mili­tary asset in future conflicts—where flex­ibility, quick response, and endurance on station are required—an organic AEW capability is essential.

There are three possible approaches to sustaining AEW support for the battle groups. The first is to spend more money on the existing E-2C fleet and try to keep it alive. This approach does not solve the problem; it merely postpones it for a few years—at a significant cost to the tax­payer. The second approach is to do noth­ing; tantamount to giving the AEW mis­sion to the Air Force.

The third approach is to start imme­diately an aggressive program to de­velop an AEW system to replace the E- 2C. The main obstacle to this solution is the Navy’s intense internal debate over future attack and fighter aircraft: AX vs. F/A-18E/F vs. F-14 Quickstrike vs. ATF. All this haggling has pulled attention away from the desperate situation carrier air wings find themselves in with'regard to support aircraft. The carrier-aviation community must take a total-force out­look and admit that AEW aircraft, tankers, and even carrier on-board de­livery aircraft are as critical to overall mission success as strike and fighter aircraft.

Many will respond to this by saying that support-aircraft programs will have to wait until the problems with attack and fighter programs are resolved. We can­not afford to wait. The Air Force has started a radar-development program for an eventual AWACS replacement. Given that AEW system performance require­ments for the Navy and the Air Force will be similar in the future, this sets up a per­fect opportunity to begin a joint Navy- Air Force system development program for the next generation of AEW aircraft. The goal of a Navy-Air Force AEW pro­gram should be the development of a system that can be integrated in a carrier- based aircraft—such as the S-3 Viking— and a land-based aircraft such as the C- 17 or the KC-10. A joint development program would reduce significantly the research and development costs of an AEW system for both services, as well. As an initial contribution to a joint AEW- development program, the Navy could use the money earmarked for the up­grading of the E-2C.

A program like this would let the Navy address its carrier-based AEW needs well into the 21st century, and ease joint-ser­vice-interoperability problems. Before the Navy can commit to this, or any other course of action, however, it must admit, as a service, that it indeed has a prob­lem in this crucial area. □

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“Reserve C-9s Support the Gulf

War”

(See M. W. Danielson, pp. 89-90, January 1992

Proceedings)

Senior Chief Aviation Machinist’s Mate William N. Cavanaugh, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve; Command Chief Petty Officer, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve Group, South­east United States-Aviation—As a re­servist who held a set of mobilization or­ders for the Coast Guard’s Logistics Support-Squadron 201 during the Gulf War, I can’t understand why the Naval Air Logistics Office (NALO) could not find sufficient assets to meet its airlift re­quirements during the Gulf War. The heavy-airlift capability the Navy needed was right under its nose.

In the mid-1980s, the Coast Guard was directed to provide two deployable HC- 130 squadrons—a total of six HC-130 Hercules from the Coast Guard’s fleet of 31 HC-130s—with aircrew and support personnel to the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet for logistics support in time of war. To meet this requirement, on 1 October 1987, the Coast Guard estab­lished the 201st and 202nd Logistics Sup­port Squadrons at Coast Guard Air Sta­tion (CGAS) Clearwater, Florida and Elizabeth City, North Carolina respec­tively. The squadrons’ personnel are a mix of active-duty officers and enlisted personnel from designated operational air stations and reservists from aviation re­serve units at CGAS Clearwater, CGAS Elizabeth City, and CGAS Sacramento, California.

I am puzzled why these units—which would have been ideal for the heavy air­lift for engine transport, ordnance, and helicopter support—were not used when it became apparent that the Navy's C-9s could not provide the needed tactical heavy-lift support. Either NALO did not read the war plans or it forgot about the Coast Guard.

Considerable money, time, and effort was expended to implement and sustain the training requirements for these units. Some of the funding for the reserve par­ticipation came from the Department of Defense, based on the idea that these units would be ready to assist the Navy with its airlift requirements during a con­flict just like the Gulf War.

The Navy’s failure to use this resource has convinced the Coast Guard that it could handle any wartime deployment with the squadrons’ active-duty person­nel and, therefore, reservists are no longer part of the squadrons’ composition. Un­fortunately, based on the C-9s’ accumu­lated flight times and overall mission requirements, this plan will not hack it if it is ever put to the test. Without the re­servists, the Coast Guard squadrons would be unable to fly anything close to the 700 flight hours averaged by each C- 9 aircraft per month. Nor would the flight crews and maintenance personnel be able to sustain the monthly pace of more than 2,800 flight hours with active- duty manning only.

While examining the shortcomings of its airlift support during the Persian Gulf War, the Navy should review the plans it wrote before the war. They will dis­cover that a valuable group of aircraft and people went unnoticed. The next time the commander of the Fleet Logis­tics Support Wing needs some help, he may find himself wishing he had used the Coast Guard during the last war. Be­cause, unless things change, the next war will find us with the lights on, but nobody home. □

“Bull? Or the Real Thing?”

(See J. H. Mitchell, pp. 40-46, April 1992 Proceedings)

Lieutenant Commander Jim Shannon, U.S. Navy—Mr. Mitchell’s argument that “only a complete liberal arts education can deliver” the aspiring military officer his total educational package is far­fetched.

Military leaders must be technically proficient in the art of war. Analysis of any problem, developed by study in the hard sciences, is the basic fundamental skill required for instinctive decision making in modern warfare. Who really cares if a jet pilot has read Dante’s In­ferno, if an engineer of the watch can re­cite Shakespeare, or if an officer of the deck understands haiku?

Naval officers are not just leaders. They are operators, managers, and com­plicated individuals just like their subor­dinates. At a minimum, officers in the Navy must understand how to operate systems, the principles that make those systems work, and the skills required to repair and maintain them.

The U.S. Naval Academy meets those basic requirements and many more. Core courses in history, English, and leader­ship and the daily interaction in Bancroft Hall and on playing fields further develop the midshipmen.

College will not transform a young in­dividual into a wise, mature adult. Nei­ther will it make a professional naval of­ficer. The required seasoning comes with time in grade.

Mr. Mitchell’s arguments would have been better served had he touted the virtues of recreational reading, vice the importance of a liberal-arts education. Through recreational reading, which in­cludes classical and contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction, naval offi­cers can develop their understanding of humanity. It does not take a complete liberal-arts education. Perhaps the Naval Academy could develop a required- reading list for its midshipmen. O

“Seawolf: The Reasons Why”

(See J. I. Lieberman, pp. 55-58, June 1992; J.

S. Dallas, T. T. Balfour and J. A. Garrow, p.

26, August 1992 Proceedings)

Charles McDaniel—One question still nags me about the USS Seawolf (SSN- 21) project. Economics, politics, and the half-life of tritium gas being what they are, the former Bolshevik boomers will be out of business in 10 to 12 years— ours, too, for that matter. About the same time, we might get a Seawolf—if there are no longer-than-usual delays. So, who will have the ships for the Seawolf to sink? □

Eric Wertheim—The USS Seawolf (SSN- 21) is just not affordable in the present day and age. The Los Angeles (SSN-688)- class attack submarines are still highly effective boats entirely capable of major upgrades, particularly in the area of elec­tronics. By upgrading the Los Angeles class, the Navy could save money and stabilize the number of submarines in its inventory. Building an “Improved-Im­proved Los Angeles” class would also keep U.S. submarine manufacturers— and their many subcontractors across the country—in business.

In a recent conversation with a sub­marine officer, I brought up the issue of Seawolf. I asked him if he would have the Navy buy it. His surprising response was that, as a submariner, he would love to take her out and see what she could do; but—as a taxpayer—he did not know if Seawolf was worth the price. He also said that his own boat—one of the Los Angeles class—was an excellent subma­rine with plenty of room for improve­ments and upgrades, and one that he would take to war with full and complete confidence.

By forgoing the not-yet built Seawolfo and improving its Los Angeles-class boats, the Navy could maintain an ex­cellent submarine force well into the next century. The Navy must get its money’s worth in this time of tight budgets. Per­haps the only way to do this is to improve our proven systems and to let go of the “silver bullets.” □

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“Save the Tailhook Association”

(See J. Towers, p. 26, January 1992; S. Hunt, p. 27-28, March 1992; B. Tillman, pp. 19-20,

April 1992; R. J. Kelly, p. 17, June 1992; C. A. Skelton, R. L. Lawson, pp. 20-23, July 1992;

D. J. Smith, p. 14, August 1992 Proceedings)

Anthony J. Principi, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs— Lieutenant Commander Smith’s comment demonstrates why the Navy is taking so much water as we sail through the wake of Tailhook 1991. He acknowledges the nature and extent of the problem when he states that “Tailhook stories are infa­mous, even in the cruiser-destroyer com­munity” and states “Senior officers out­side the aviation community also were aware of the happenings at Tailhook.” If everyone knew, why is anyone sur­prised that the entire Navy is being spat­tered with muck resulting from those “happenings”?

More disappointing is Commander Smith’s diagnosis of the repudiation of Tailhook by the Congress and Navy lead­ership as nothing more than “political cor­rectness.” A response, he asserts, that will harm the Navy’s warfighting capability. He suggests as a cure to this “inquisition” “leaders who will stand up for the fu­ture of the Navy” (presumably by telling the “powerful women’s lobby” to go back to the kitchen and bake some cookies).

The first lesson in seamanship is to know and understand the environment within which one is sailing. Failure to perceive, understand, and act on changes in the sea can lead to green water over the bow—or worse. The societal seas on which the Navy sails have changed. Behavior that was once accepted—or at least tolerated—is now unacceptable. The men at Tailhook went aground be­cause they did not change course in re­sponse to that sea change. The question is now whether the rest of the Navy will follow them blindly into the same shoals, insisting that their compasses are cor­rect and it must be the rocks that are out of place.

A Navy in which events like Tailhook are known to occur, but where no pre­ventive actions are taken, and for which a code of silence obstructs corrective ac­tion after the fact is one that taxpayers are not interested in funding, parents are not interested in sending their children to join, and the Congress is no longer in­terested in tolerating.

Commander Smith’s comment indi­cates that some of our warriors still “just don’t get it” and are doomed to take green water until they do, or until they founder and take our Navy with them. There may well be members of the “pow­erful women’s lobby” or the “Congress hungering for a peace dividend” whose agenda are not the same as the Navy’s. To the extent that the naval community ignores—or, even worse, derides—the lesson of Tailhook, the Navy will give those interests the ammunition they need to advance their agenda at the Navy’s ex­pense. It is important also to remember that many of the voices raised in dismay over Tailhook are the voices of the Navy’s friends. Many of these people were appalled at the sight of the Navy unable to take seriously the values of individual dignity upon which our nation is founded.

The argument that Tailhook is an in­evitable byproduct of the warrior cul­ture that is needed to fight and win wars rests on the premise that the definition of “warrior” necessarily includes (or at least does not exclude) the concept of sexual thug. If the Navy expects to fight wars in the manner of barbarian raiders descend­ing upon villages in the eleventh century, the distinction may not be important. However, if we expect to fight and win on 21st-century battlefields, the defini­tion of “naval warrior” had best include the words “disciplined” and “profes­sional.” Clearly, the actions of the men

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who created the Tailhook gantlet fail the disciplined, professional warrior test.

The American people—and their rep­resentatives in the Congress—will give their Navy—and the community of naval officers—the standing and the resources needed to control the seas only if the Navy earns them. The Navy and its of­ficer corps cannot earn that standing if they cannot see and understand the basic values of the society they defend. If Navy officers are to have the confidence of the country, they must demonstrate an un­derstanding of the responsibilities inher­ent in the special trust and confidence that comes with their commissions.

Tailhook and the Navy’s response to it have put the Navy on trial. When his­tory imposes such a trial it does not care whether all on the dock deserve to be there. History only judges the response. Tailhook happened—the Navy cannot change that. However, the Navy can— and must—respond to the challenge now before it. The response will determine the future of the Navy and, therefore, our na­tion’s ability to control the seas. □

Barrett Tillman—“Naval aviation is eat­ing its young.”

That assessment by a retired captain sums up the present condition of Navy Air as the “Tailhook Scandal” nears its first anniversary. In fact, private response to my letter in the April 1992 Proceed­ings has clarified just how far from re­solving the crisis we still are.

After more than four months of com­ments from dozens of active, reserve, and retired aviators, it is obvious that much of the Navy’s senior leadership is unable to distinguish between three related, but distinct, problems: sexual harassment, re­lations with the Tailhook Association, and the way the service has attempted to han­dle those subjects. What follows is the distilled opinion ranging from active-duty lieutenants to retired vice admirals.

First, sexual harassment and “Tailgate” are being dealt with, however inequitably and inefficiently. But the Navy’s insti­tutional willingness to sacrifice innocent people on the altar of political expedi­ency has caused the most severe morale crisis since Vietnam—perhaps even since the pre-Korean War doldrums. Therefore, some history may be appropriate, as seen through an unscientific sampling.

A retired fighter pilot recalls, “During Vietnam, the politicians sent us to die against ‘twinkie’ targets for seven years when they knew our losses weren’t worth the results. But nobody—not the Secre­tary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Op­erations, not even the Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff—would stand up to the politicians.”

That theme—standing up to the politi­cians—rings again and again. Many avi­ators recall that in 1985 the careers of three innocent officers at Naval Air Sta­tion Miramar were ruined for offenses al­legedly committed by their predecessors as much as three years before. Again, not even the Navy Secretary stood up to a self-serving congressman (who, ironi­cally, ended his tenure amid charges of sexual harassment) who pressed the Navy to punish these officers.

Junior officers are particularly bitter over the shotgun approach employed to identify possible abusers at the 1991 Tail­hook event. When more than 4,000 Navy and Marine officers’ promotions were held up for review, one fighter pilot de­scribed it, as a “guilty until proven in­nocent” atmosphere. Adds a Marine, “This is one big witch hunt.”

A constant diet of adverse publicity has diverted public attention from the Navy’s other needs—especially a new at­tack aircraft following Secretary Garrett’s A-12 debacle. When aviators wonder about the future of attack aviation—the reason for owning carriers—they look up the chain of command and ask, “Why doesn't the Chief of Naval Operations try to keep things on track? It’s sure not because he’s sweating out his next se­lection board.”

There is also frustration and anger and—worst of all—mistrust among the reservists as well. “I don’t want to go on active duty,” says one lieutenant com­mander. “I’ve commanded people and I know that loyalty is supposed to work downward as well as upward. But in the Navy it hasn’t been that way for a long time.” A Marine reservist adds, “Obvi­ously the military trails society in social trends, and we need to catch up. But this isn’t the way to do it.”

The recent Representative Patricia Schroeder-bashing incident at Miramar is another case in point. Some aviators admit they were shocked at the banner reportedly aimed at Representative Schroeder, but most of them take a larger view. What logic exists when the Supreme Court allows desecration of the flag that naval officers are sworn to de­fend, when those same men are punished merely for expressing unsavory opinions of an anti-military politician? They admit to genuine confusion about the First Amendment rights of naval personnel.

The right of affiliation also has come under question. Following Secretary Gar­rett’s belated departure, Undersecretary of the Navy Dan Howard called for dis­banding of the Tailhook Association and declared it “inappropriate for any active- duty officer to serve” the group in any capacity. He further declared that drunken aviators “in fact criminally assaulted those women . . This amazing state­ment not only caused confusion among active-duty Tailhookers—it was illegal, according to every lawyer I’ve queried. Aside from pretrial prejudice by the Navy, it causes us to wonder what’s next: banning membership in the Association of Naval Aviation, the U.S. Naval Insti­tute, or Rotary?

Any one of these concerns would be enough to cause genuine worry. But the fact that all of them exist and continue to worsen goes far beyond the Las Vegas flashpoint. Whether the admirals know it or not, they are losing the confidence of their subordinates. Previously career-ori­ented young officers are opting out, and I personally know two extremely suc­cessful pilots who have resigned in dis­gust, trusting for better luck in a de­pressed economy. And, no, neither of them attended Tailhook 1991.

The problem has spilled into the civil­ian arena. For instance, a naval flight of­ficer relates that some of his Oceana squadronmates have stopped wearing their uniforms home from duty because civilians stop them and ask how many women they have molested. “Sexual ha­rassment is all the public knows about us anymore,” he says, noting that nobody in the Navy has defended thousands of in­nocent officers from those charges.

But Navy-civilian friction also works in the other direction. Witness the actions of the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, who takes time to write an ob­noxious letter to a pro-Tailhook civilian he has never met—me! Even purely civil­ian environments have been poisoned. One recipient of The Hook’s contributor’s award was told by his employer to re­move the plaque from the office.

Retirees are similarly disgusted with the worsening situation, and find it diffi­cult to remain supportive of the service. A former carrier captain, who holds two Navy Crosses, is the most vehement of all when he cites “the treachery and dis­loyalty of the senior brass” toward guilt­less junior officers. A contemporary, a retired major general with five combat tours in three wars, agrees: “It’s a grossly excess reaction that does far more harm than good.”

Other retired flag officers widely be­lieve that the failure of Navy seniors to protect innocent subordinates might partly be attributable to present career paths. Joint service and staff tours may have im­proved interoperability, but former three- and four-star admirals question whether such duty is worthwhile if it removes se­niors from sufficient contact with junior officers. Almost to a man, retired flag avi­ators perceive a growing black-shoe/ brown-shoe rift in which submariners and surface-warfare officers will emerge with proportionately greater influence in avi­ation matters. True or not, it is one more indicator of discord in the service.

Clearly, the essential question now is not sexual abuse but confidence in Navy leaders. “Do as I say, not as I do,” has never been an effective technique for par­ents, let alone for military commanders.

Yet aviators remember the continued presence in Las Vegas—for periods span­ning decades—of men now wearing three or four stars. Now, when some of those admirals speak of “core values” and in­sist upon another standard of behavior, junior officers shrug and mutter, “Rhetoric.” We cannot blame them for concluding that such transformations ap­pear extremely convenient at least—and hypocritical at worst. Consequently, in­creasing numbers of junior officers rate Navy leadership at “F-minus.”

Yet, junior officers instinctively rec-

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ognize the solution that eludes their lead­ers. “Put the accused abusers on trial and be done with it,” summarizes a lieutenant with more wisdom than his civilian or uniformed superiors.

Perhaps we are seeing the genuine value of a forum like Proceedings, which can point to problems that admirals may not recognize or choose to ignore. What is clear, however, is that the Navy will perpetuate this severe morale crisis only at immense harm to itself. □

Captain Wynn F. Foster, U.S. Navy (Re­tired)—It has been said that one of the tragedies of the Watergate scandal of some 20 years ago was that no one in the Nixon administration had the courage or wisdom to step forward to say “But, wait! It’s wrong'." Today, there is a parallel in the much publicized but often inaccu­rately portrayed Tailhook controversy.

No one questions the need for identi­fication and appropriate action against those individuals guilty of whatever mis­conduct may have occurred at the 1991 Tailhook convention. Unfortunately, often inaccurate and frequently negative cov­erage of the Tailhook incident has given the general public the impression that the Tailhook Association is little more than an “Animal House” fraternity and that the entire Navy tactical air (TacAir) com­munity is populated with nothing but sex- and-booze “Top Gun” party boys. Those impressions are false, but have been lost in an ugly morass of half-truths, inaccu­racies, unsubstantiated allegations, and innuendoes. Fairness and objectivity have been the major casualties of the Tailhook sexual harassment flap.

But the real tragedy—the Watergate parallel—is that, for the better part of ten months since the Tailhook story broke, there has been a surprising lack of will­ingness on the part of high-level Navy leadership to step forward to say, “Wait a minute! Whatever happened in Las Vegas was despicable, but it was the doing of a relatively small group of mis­creants. There were more than 3,000 peo­ple registered for the 1991 Tailhook con­vention and the vast majority of those were in no way connected with, respon­sible for, or in most cases even aware of whatever alleged sexual harassment may have occurred.”

Even more disconcerting is the fact that no one stepped forward to say, “Wait a minute! There are thousands of people in the tactical naval aviation business, whether or not they are members of the Tailhook Association, who didn’t even attend the convention in Las Vegas, but who are being unjustly smeared with a

broad brush of innuendo!”

Before retirement, I was a career, TacAir naval aviator and flew from many carriers. Recently I was privileged to at­tended a formal social activity as the guest of honor of one of the many tail­hook squadrons that make up the Navy tactical air community. I was treated roy­ally and respectfully, but was dismayed to learn first-hand that squadron morale, particularly among the junior officers, had deteriorated markedly in the wake of the Tailhook incident. Those young people, many of them veterans of Desert Storm, were dedicated professionals in a dan­gerous and highly demanding occupation. It was not the sexual-harassment issue that had made an adverse impact on their morale, however. It was their perception of being unfairly branded as irresponsi­ble playboys; their perception that, in the wake of the Tailhook incident, inept in­vestigation, and adverse publicity, they have been abandoned by those in Wash­ington and elsewhere who wear stars on their collars. One young lieutenant was choked with emotion when he told me how he loved the Navy, loved to fly, and loved being a part of naval aviation. But that young officer was leaving the Navy because he was distrustful of the future he might face, given the example of poor high-level leadership demon­strated in the mud-wrestling fallout from the Tailhook incident. It was sobering to see that one instance of the impact of the Tailhook problem on just one unit of the TacAir community.

Time has long passed for a more objec­tive perspective on the Tailhook incident, which has been allowed to grow dispro­portionately into a major, misunderstood, and near-unmanageable mess. Acting Secretary of the Navy Sean O’Keefe per­haps lit a small candle of perspective re­cently, the first in the civilian hierarchy of our government to do so. Noting that Navy morale has been “battered” by the adverse publicity, Secretary O’Keefe ac­knowledged that the Tailhook incident was the handiwork of only a small group of individuals. Too many people, said the Secretary, had been undeservedly tarred by that incident. Let’s hope those com­ments mark a watershed in objectivity in dealing with the Tailhook matter.

Perhaps it’s also time for the active- duty Navy hierarchy to reexamine its leadership concepts and its failure to leap to the defense of innocent subordinates early on in the Tailhook debacle. Far more disquieting than weathering a po­litical firestorm over sexual harassment is the potential long-term damage to Navy TacAir’s morale, retention, and readiness as a result of such a failure. □

“You Decide”

(See D. C. Richardson, pp. 34-39, December 1991; P. R. Schratz, T. Allen, and N. Polmar, pp. 25-27, February 1992; E. L. Beach, p. 23, June 1992 Proceedings)

“Betrayal at Pearl Harbor”

(See R. Pineau, pp. 97-98, December 1991; E.

L. Beach, p. 23, June 1992 Proceedings)

Captain A. J. Pelletier, U.S. Navy (Re- tired)—I can’t believe that Admiral Richardson would put any stock in Be­trayal at Pearl Harbor)Summit Books, 1991) by James Rusbridger and Eric Nave which he must have been refer­ring to when he wrote: “It is now known that British cryptologists in Singapore were reading and reporting exchanges be­tween Admiral Yamamoto and his force commanders . . .” The same book states that the British were reading 35% of the Japanese code JN-25 by the end of 1939, but, unless the British had the Japanese code book and additive tables, that would have been impossible. Furthermore, if they had had the code book, they would have been able to read all of the code. Rusbridger and Nave further state that the JN-25 was a one-part code, that is, a code in which the code groups and meanings are both in order. However, an illustra­tion on pages 84 and 85 of the book are photostats of the Japanese code book that show that JN-25 was a two-part code—one in which messages are en­coded alphabetically in one book and de­coded numerically in a second book. There was no way that to fill in between recoveries, because the decode book had the meanings in random order.

In 1939, I was working in the office at Station Cast at Cavite in the Philip­pines where I had started in cryptanaly­sis. We kept track of the Japanese fleet by means of traffic analysis, reading plain language dispatches, and decoding mes­sages in the then-current naval code. On 1 June, the Japanese introduced a new 5­digit code—in which the code groups were enciphered by applying a 5-digit ad­ditive to them—which we named JN-25; however, it wasn’t used throughout the Japanese Navy until 1 July. At the same time, plain language traffic became very rare. We had not even solved the cipher system while I was still at Cavite. That autumn, when I reported to Washington, work was continuing on JN-25.

It wasn’t until late in the summer of 1940 that the additive cipher was solved and enough messages were gathered to make an attack on the 5-digit code groups profitable. At that time, Lieutenant Com­mander E. S. L. Goodwin escorted me into a large room filled with a few desks and many long tables covered with fold­ers full of messages, and said: “Get to work.” The messages were filed by date­time and all of the groups were indexed so it was easy to check every occurrence of a given code group. Each code group was also divisible by three, which made a good garble check. Now all that was left to do was to recover the meaning for the more than 33,000 code groups. That was my sole job during my tour in Wash­ington, which lasted until May 1944. We were never supposed to produce fin­ished intelligence; Hypo (Hawaii) and Cast had that responsibility. Accordingly,

I daily compiled a list of recoveries for transmission to those stations.

By the time the war started, we were reading most movement reports while other types of messages were in a lesser state of readability. It must be remem­bered that, before the war, we in GZ (the cryptanalysis section) were not working on current traffic. Our intercept material came by slow boat from Cavite, Guam, and Hawaii. By the time the additives were stripped away and the messages logged and printed, the material was at least two months old. Cast and Hypo were charged with reading current mes­sages. Accordingly, any message within two months of Pearl Harbor would have still been in the pipeline. I never saw a movement report from the Combined Fleet which showed it leaving the Kuriles. This doesn’t mean one was not sent, just that I didn't see it. Of course, as soon as the war started we had more important things to look for.

Sometime after the Battle of Midway, a captured Japanese code book was de­livered to GZ. My boss, Commander Redfield Mason, told Dorothy Edgers to use it to check through the traffic during the month before the war to see if there was anything we should have seen. She came to me with the message “Niitaka Yama Wo Nobore” (Climb Mount Ni­itaka!). After being convinced of its au­thenticity, we deciphered the heading and date—from Imperial Headquarters to the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, sent on 28 or 29 November 1941. We decided that it was the “go” signal and reported this to Commander Mason who agreed. I often wondered what the field stations did when they intercepted the message. Probably nothing; there was no mention of Hawaii or any other place. Dorothy Edgers never found a movement report from Yamamoto reporting depar­ture from the Kuriles. Again, that doesn’t mean that such a message wasn’t sent, it just means that we didn't have it. How­ever, I believe that one was never sent.

Finally, it seems that everyone wants to make the commanders in Washington the scapegoats for the surprise at Pearl Harbor. Well, no one in Washington was the intelligence officer for the U.S. Fleet; Eddie Layton was. No one in Washing­ton was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet; that was Admiral Husband Kimmel’s job. They were unaware of the coming at­tack—but is that an excuse? The situa­tion was tense and a Japanese attack was widely expected to come at any time. Ad­miral Kimmel and, his Army counterpart. Lieutenant General Walter Short should have been better prepared. □

“Submarine Maneuver Control”

(See W. P. Gruner and H. E. Payne, pp. 56-60,

July 1992 Proceedings)

N. Allen Cargill; Chief Engineer, Tech- nitrol, Inc.—The article's analysis offered some excellent possibilities for the future; however, there are many other factors to be considered in submarine maneuver control. One that was not mentioned is gyroscopic precession, which can consti­tute a large destabilizing force in a high­speed, single-screw propulsion maneuver. Depending on the direction of rotation of the screw, the resulting forces are not equal and opposite when executing a right or left rudder turn in a three-dimensional medium. Bernoulli’s theorem of fluid me­chanics applies whether the medium is air or water; therefore, the described eva­sive maneuver at 24 knots with a 30° rud­der angle is analogous to the aerobatic maneuver of deliberately inducing a snap roll, which then proceeds into a spin.

Eliminating the sail is not necessarily the solution. Adequate structural height to support the periscopes, radar masts, and antennas must still be provided. A properly designed sail not only provides this necessary structure, but also acts as a very effective dorsal fin contributing to stability in a hull design with a low meta­centric center.

Independent control surfaces coupled with a single-man control station would be the ideal solution. When coupled with the subsystems discussed, such a station literally would allow a submarine to be “flown” through its maneuvers. The sin­gle-pilot approach would improve con­trol and, since a smaller Navy is almost inevitable, reduce crew sizes. European designers are already incorporating uni­tized control in their smaller designs.

With the demise of the USS Seawolf (SSN-21) program and the uncertain fu­ture of the Centurion, it would be wise to consider a smaller, less-expensive at­tack submarine, designed to hit hard and fast and to escape counterattacks. □ “Let’s Avoid Another Stark”

(See D. G. Freeman, pp. 34-39, June 1992; R.

F. Woodford, B. R. Blakeley, pp. 14-16,

August 1992 Proceedings)

Commander Keith F. Amacker, U.S. Navy—Contrary to the designated and self-appointed spokesmen for the surface Navy, all is not well. The surface Navy does not know how to fight. If it ever faced a well-trained enemy equipped with modern weapons, it would suffer ap­palling casualties during the initial en­gagements. The incidents involving the USS Stark (FFG-31) and the USS Vin­cennes (CG-49) were not isolated flukes caused by bad luck, bad joss, “the fog of war,” or training problems limited to those ships. They were the products of a system that does not prepare its officers and men for combat and measures effec­tiveness in the terms of the “administra­tive warfare” mission area and success­ful completion of canned training exercises that bear little resemblance to real combat. Battle management has been turned over to senior enlisted techni­cians whose background and training is normally operations and maintenance. Few of our officers really know what they are doing in terms of managing combat systems in a threat environment. The pipeline training is inadequate to the point of being criminally negligent. For exam­ple, the tactical-action officer (TAO) module in department head school is nothing but a six-week memory data dump.

While the prospective executive offi- cer/prospective commanding officer (PXO/PCO) pipeline holds some few group-think scenarios that provide the wisdom of trial and experience, the op­portunities do not exist to learn and train on combat systems under the experienced eyes of senior or mid-level officers. Com­bat-systems team training available to the ships is a little better because of the avail­ability of combat-systems team trainers (CSTTs) such as the 20B4 and 20B5. Un­fortunately, these resources are often un­derutilized and when hooked up do not receive the required level of command at­tention. Often key people—the ship’s TAOs and weapons-control officers, as well as the executive officer and cap­tain—either are not involved or involved only to a limited degree.

Contrast this approach with the prin­cipal warfare officer (PWO) concept used by the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and many NATO navies. Taught at the School of Maritime Operations at HMS Dryad, the PWO school is a 44- Week course designed to produce mid­grade warfare specialists. It is divided into

The Stark incident was “the product of a system that does not prepare its officers and men for combat.”

three sections that teach basic technical details, provide hands-on experience with equipment at sea, and employ a rigor­ous regimen of operational team training. The PWO, roughly speaking, is the equiv­alent of a tactical-action officer, but he is not a department head by our defini­tion. He is responsible to the captain for his area of warfare including training, op­eration, and employment of the weapon systems and sensors. However, the PWO is not directly responsible for equipment maintenance, that job belongs to the ship’s weapons-electrical officer.

The basic reason for the poor training and inadequate preparation of our offi­cers stems from the skewed measure­ments the Navy uses to determine if a ship is a success. In the surface Navy, the hallmarks of excellence are: a large amount of paper pushed out of the ship’s office, timely compliance with adminis­trative tasks from higher authorities, pass­ing a mind-numbing array of inspections, and the punctuality in getting underway and steaming to where the ship is sup­posed to be. Since the Navy does not con­sider a ship’s total combat effectiveness as a measure of success, any effort to im­prove it will be put on hold at least “until the next inspection is over.”

Senior Chief Freeman put forth some wonderful ideas to improve our training pipeline. However, these proposals will do no good until we take a hard look at the way we do business and make some serious changes. We need to determine what it really takes to make an effective fighting ship and modify our many in­spections to measure these factors. The gauge of effectiveness must be how an entire ship—not just a particular depart­ment—performs under simulated combat conditions against a capable threat. It must include battle management of the main-propulsion and auxiliary equip­ment that serve combat systems.

Detect-to-engage exercises against Lear jets, operational propulsion plant ex­aminations, damage-control drills, and in­dependent-steaming exercises in condi­tion four are not the way to develop combat effectiveness. Simultaneous mul­tiship, combat-systems team training using a modified 20B4 or 20B5 CSTTs will help in such an effort, but the bulk of the solution lies in teaching and train­ing our officers how to fight and win.

Computer games, paper tactical situa­tions, and regurgitating information on the threat are not preparations for com­bat. Our officers need schoolhouse time, spent in combat simulators that can re­produce various threat environments. Be­fore, during, and after any simulator time, experienced combat officers need to teach and preach tactics. The other positions in weapons control and the combat-infor­mation center need to be manned by ex­perienced petty officers who are per­forming their jobs in support of officer training. If it is a team trainer, then each man on the team must be properly pre­pared and qualified in his respective watch station. Before he becomes a mem­ber of a defense-condition combat-sys­tems team, a watchstander must receive instruction on his equipment and its per­formance as it relates to countering and defeating the threat. “Sink or swim” has a place in a team-training environment but only in the context of testing a man’s ability to respond under pressure—not testing his knowledge of the variable-ac­tion buttons and fixed-action buttons on his console.

The most distressing side of this issue is that the Navy failed to learn the real lessons from the Stark and the Vincennes incidents in which our ineptitude cost the precious lives of our sailors and innocent civilians. During my PXO course, I at­tended the official Navy “lessons learned” presentation on the Stark called “Stark Reality!!” During the presentation, I learned the particular damage-control lessons—regarding sufficient numbers of oxygen-breathing apparatus (OBA) can­isters, the lack of OBAs, and toxic fumes from burning plastic—gleaned from the superb damage-control effort by the men of the Stark. Completely missing, how­ever, were lessons in “offensive damage control” or, as a Royal Australian Navy officer put it, “the best damage control is ordnance on target.”

The inability of the Stark's and the Vincennes’s combat systems teams to evaluate a threat or a perceived threat cor­rectly and make timely, thoughtful, and correct responses is a clear indication of a grave problem that the Navy seems un­willing to recognize. What will it take for the Navy to understand that it does no good to test and evaluate rigorously the ability of a ship to drive to a battle only for it to become a target once it gets there? □

“How About an Aegis Tour?”

(See E. B. Hontz, p. 54, July 1992 Proceedings)

Lieutenant Todd W. Leavitt, U.S. Navy— Captain Hontz hits a vital point right on the mark. His proposal to create an anti­air-warfare (AAW) officer billet on an Aegis ship differs little, if at all, from what many Aegis ships have been try­ing to do for a number of years. As a for­mer combat-information-center officer on an Aegis cruiser, I can recall numerous times when the need for cross-decking from the carrier-air-wing staff and air­borne-early-warning, fighter, and even at­tack squadrons was deemed a necessity. Face-to-face exposure and the explana­tion of air-wing tactics, the intricacies of flight operations, and air crew procedures and peculiarities were considered essen­tial to execute properly the responsibil­ity of directing force antiair-warfare with which an Aegis ship is often tasked. Un­fortunately, this highly beneficial process was often only a temporary response to a continuing demand.

Besides the elimination of the need to cross-deck, the creation of this billet would greatly enhance force antiair-war­fare commander (FAAWC) performance. When tasked with a warfare responsibil­ity, an Aegis ship (or any AAW ship for that matter) is not blessed with the man­power, flexibility, or experience that comes with an afloat staff, but nonethe­less is expected to perform the same func­tions as those units with a staff. This often requires stretching the limits of a ship’s wardroom and chiefs’ mess. Port- and-starboard watches, combined with the rigors of a daily ship routine, do not allow the time that should be devoted to the planning, coordination, and evaluation of the antiair-warfare mission. The addition of one aviator would not solve this prob­lem, but it would surely help improve the proficiency of the ship, allowing for a better use of time and energy.

Furthermore, in the AAW arena, where decisions must normally be made more expeditiously than in other warfare areas, an experienced aviator would be an ex­cellent addition to the team. The presence of an aviator who has been a “low, slow flier,” or who knows what it’s like to return to the carrier with communications down or identification-friend-or-foe in­operable can only better the FAAWC de­cision-making process. The aviator may not be expert in employing the Standard missile or executing surface-warfare tac­tics, but his knowledge can help smooth out any interoperability glitches between surface and air assets within a battle group.

As a surface-warfare officer, I see only

limited disadvantages to this proposal. I would not advocate the sacrifice of a sur­face-warfare-officer’s billet to make room for an aviator—but if that were neces­sary, the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks. It would also be unfortunate if the aviation community viewed this disassociated billet as a waste of time. As the Navy shrinks, it makes sense to use all possible resources to improve our ability to operate in any environment. As Captain Hontz noted, the time has come to make some bold changes. Let’s start with this one. □

“The Navy Should Take Back the Arizona Memorial”

(See R. L. Herschkowitz, p. 79, December 1991; J. S. Harmon, pp. 24-26, February 1992;

W. C. Jefferies, p. 22, June 1992 Proceedings)

Edwin C. Bearss, Chief Historian, Na­tional Park Service—The charges that the National Park Service runs the USS Ari­zona Memorial in “a cheap and tawdry way” and that the interpretive film and orientation talks at the Memorial show a pro-Japanese bias are inaccurate, un­founded, and unfair.

The Arizona Memorial attracts large numbers of visitors; therefore, the Visi­tors Center is often crowded and lines for the boat to the Memorial itself are often long. For budgetary reasons, the NPS has not been able to provide all the im­provements to visitor facilities that we would like; however, we do not wish to restrict visitation for those who have come far to see the Memorial.

It is on the interpretive programs—par­ticularly the film—at the Memorial that critics have centered their attentions. The film was made by the U.S. Navy and has been used since the NPS began operat­ing the Memorial in 1980. It has been shown to 14 million visitors, but because of its age and the need for improvements both in content and technical quality, a new film is being made.

To ensure the new film is as accu­rate—and fitting—as possible, profes­sional historians and interpretive spe­cialists—including the Chief of Naval History—reviewed the script, and distin­guished Pearl Harbor survivors and rep­resentatives of national veterans organi­zations have looked at it as well. The latter group includes; Joseph Glaubitz, National President of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association; John Finn, the last living man awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on 7 December 1941; and Captain Joseph Taussig, Jr., another Pearl Harbor survivor who is now the assistant deputy undersecretary of the Navy. Cap­tain Donald Ross, who was also awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor that day, examined the script before his recent death.

The preparation of the film is but one example of how the NPS has sought to take account of veterans’ concerns and treat them with respect. The care that we take in monitoring the introductory talks that precede the film is another. In fact, several Pearl Harbor survivors are among those who give the talks.

A third example of our efforts is the program of events we organized to honor the heroes of Pearl Harbor on the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack. It is singularly unfortunate, then, that readers of Proceedings have seen only criticism of the Park Service and no reporting of the NPS-run commemoration during 4-7 December 1991. The distinguished sur­vivors named above were invited to Hawaii by the NPS and took part in the events and special efforts were taken to extend a special welcome to all survivors and relatives.

1 am aware of these facts because, as the Chief Historian of the National Park Service, I was—with the full support of my superiors—on hand for the events. Additionally, as an enlisted Marine com­bat veteran of the Pacific theater in World War II, I took particular care to listen to my comrades-in-arms who took part in the commemorative ceremonies. I can as­sure all who were not there that all the events were dignified and solemn.

Critical comments themselves do not bother me, but it does trouble me when extreme and ill-informed accounts cause pain and concern of the part of veterans, their relatives, and other citizens. For all those who have continuing doubts, I invite you to visit the Memorial and in­spect the National Park Service’s man­agement of it first-hand. If you cannot do this, please accept my assurances that the National Park Service sees the USS Ari­zona Memorial as an eternal tribute to those who gave their lives on 7 Decem­ber 1941—many of whom are entombed in the Arizona—and that we strive to the utmost of our ability to administer the Memorial accordingly, just as we do at the 14 national cemeteries—including Gettysburg—that are in the National Park System.

I regret that any veteran—or any vis­itor—to the Arizona Memorial comes away with a negative view. But beyond my personal assurances, I cannot give any solace to those who find only fault. I can only hope that, when expressing concerns and assigning criticism and blame, that they will also begin to give credit where credit is due. □